Conferencing with Friends and Evangelicals

The purpose for my recent trip to Washington was to take in the National Faculty Leadership Conference.  This is the second time I've attended this conference and DMS, SLS and I have established a nice tradition of alternating between NFLC and the Christian Scholar's Conference.  Both conference are the same weekend but NFLC is bi-annual.  So it makes sense to rotate. 

This year's conference was wonderful in many ways.  The plenary speakers were Ken Elzinga from UVA (Economics) and JP Moreland from Talbot School of Theology.  Richard Pratt of ThirdMill.org lead morning devotionals on Saturday and Sunday.  Saturday was a wonderful day at the Conference.  After a challenging sermon from Dr. Pratt, we broke into "Ministry Tracks" for a potpourri of presentations related to ministry in the academy.  I found this to be the highlight of the Conference.  I heard Ken Elzinga discuss how he uses the Lecture Method to teach classes of over 1,000 (ONE THOUSAND!) students at a time at UVA.  I couldn't believe his classes were that big.  It made me very happy to be at Pepperdine where a "large" class is 30 students. 

Next I heard James Painter give an introduction to Food Psychology 101.  It was terrific! He presented years of research that indicate portion control is the biggest factor in weight management.  Check out his web-site.  It's helpful, informative, ad-free, and filled with sound scientific research.

Finally, Robert Kaita from the Particle Physics Lab at Princeton taught a session on balancing the demands of the academy with your personal and spiritual life.  It was very encouraging.

The afternoon was separate tracks for different academic areas.  The business and economics track was attended by about 20 faculty from all over the country.  SLS, DMS & I presented our "Virtue and Commerce" course and it was very interesting.  While some within the audience were appreciative, we had one or two more conservative attendees who pushed us to make the course more openly evangelistic.  It was quite interesting to see this more fundamentalist impulse within the Evangelical community.  For some reason, I had not anticipated this type of response at NFLC.  I suppose I should have. 

One final observation...the first thing I wrote in my notes at NFLC this year was something like,

I am not an "evangelical".  I appreciate much of what they contribute to the faith, but they are not my "tribe". 

I feel a sense of belonging in the Churches of Christ.  I recognize they aren't perfect...in fact some components of the CoC drive me batty.  But they are my people.  I continue to come to terms with what that means.  But spending time within other Christian traditions helps me to better understand and appreciate my own.

 

PS - In case you can't tell from the photo above...I never could make up my mind about which team to root for...so I wore a Nats T-shirt and an O's hat. :-)

out on the town with Mom

Mom & I having lunch at Phillys Cheese Steak where Buckeye Good Food used to be.

Live from the most-powerful city on earth...

That's how Tony Kornheiser used to start his daily radio program here in DC. Anyhow...

I'm here in Washington now and spending most of the day with my parents.

Tonight I get to hear a nice plenary session on the core of the contemporary university. Tomorrow some colleagues and I present a short session on the Virtue and Commerce course we developed this past year.

After the conference tomorrow night, were taking in one of the "most important English language plays of the 20th Century" at the Warehouse Theater.

Sunday, after the conference session, we're going to the new Nat's stadium for an inter-league game between my childhood team and the Nats. I have this on-going identity crisis (which I've blogged about before...). The effect of this identity crisis is I can't decide which hat to buy at the game on Sunday. Any thoughts?

The Rich Get Richer...

Recently, one of my traditionally more conservative (and contrarian!) friends and I enjoyed an evening together at home. It was delightful to talk about our families, faith, and politics with a dear friend.

One area that we clearly agreed on was that the current economic situation in the US has benefitted the richest Americans while harming the vast majority of the country. Granted, both of us may qualify as "rich", but we are clearly not in the top 5% of income-earners.

Today, I found a recent study from Economists at UC Berkeley that indicate the shift towards deregulated, "free-market" control over the economy has empirically stratified the income distribution dramatically. I recommend you read their summary paper linked above. However, if you don't have time...here is their conclusion...

The labor market has been creating much more inequality over the
last thirty years, with the very top earners capturing a large fraction of
macroeconomic productivity gains. A number of factors may help explain this
increase in inequality, not only underlying technological changes but also the
retreat of institutions developed during the New Deal and World War II - such
as progressive tax policies, powerful unions, corporate provision of health
and retirement benefits, and changing social norms regarding pay inequality.
We need to decide as a society whether this increase in income inequality
is efficient and acceptable and, if not, what mix of institutional reforms
should be developed to counter it.

In the District...

I'm heading out today for a week in DC. I'll have some family time and a conference. I'll post from there tomorrow.

The Hill have Wheels

Bucking the nation-wide trend for "staycations" this year due to high fuel-costs, our dear friends the Hills took a driving vacation from MD to CA and back.  Holy cow!  That's a LONG drive!  But they made the most of it with visit to see friends in at least six states along the way.  Including, a few days in our backyard (not literally!  They stayed at RTB's while he was in TN). 

The day after Our Favorite Girls and That Bald Guy left, the Hills dropped by for a day at the beach with Michelle and the kids and then spent the night with us.  We had a great time talking about families, friends, faith and politics.  We are so blessed to have so many wonderful friends! 

Fun with friends at the beach

It's a beautiful day at the beach in Malibu. And we're enjoying it to the fullest with some dear friends from Bloomington. Our "favorite girls and that bald guy" spent a few days with us and we had a blast! The beach, the pool, cooking out, cooking in, Vietnamese Pho, Boba, Paradise Cove, Malibu Seafood, leaving ALL seven children at home alone while we went out to dinner...

My goodness we had a blast! We're already looking forward to their next visit. By then I'm sure I will have forgotten about this one. :-)

I'll post more photos soon...

Our "Favorite Girls" and "that bald guy"

Some dear friends from IN visited last week.  We've been looking forward to their visit for a long time.  This is the third time they've come to see us since we moved to CA. 

We love their visits for lots of reasons...they are a sweet family that inspires us to our highest ambitions, they encourage us with their strong faith in God's provision, and they really make us laugh!

It's been about two years since we saw them last, so Tater Tot just barely remembered them.  In fact, he could not remember Scott's name.  Perhaps that's because last time he saw Scott, he was dresses a Pirate for VBS all week...or perhaps it is because Scott has recently begun shaving his head completely bald... who knows.  In any event, we've referred to their family as "our favorite girls" for years.  Tater, however, was not comfortable with this moniker and attached the addendum, "...and that bald guy". 

We enjoyed their visit tremendously!  Highlights included...

• An amazing morning at the beach (did I mention our favorite girls are all fair-skinned and blonde and that "somebody" forgot to apply adequate suntan lotion?)
• Daily splashes in the pool.
• Our regular game of "take-two" where That Bald Guy absolutely killed us (as always).
• And, last--but certainly not least--two times the adults went out for a meal and left all seven children AT HOME ALONE!  They did great together and we had wonderful time on our dinner and lunch dates without any worries.  They are growing up fast!

Kmiec on Obama...

This is an interesting Op/Ed piece about faith, politics, and issues of current interest.

A really "funny" "site"

I found this "site" a few months ago. Every time I read it I laugh out loud. Check it out.

Big Celebration...

After Marcus' graduation we had a big celebration. He chose where we ate for lunch and dinner (Taco Bell & Arby's respectively) and in the middle we saw Prince Caspian. We all liked the show, but this full-sized Hulk was too fun to pass up. We probably won't see the Hulk movie, but this prop was awesome.

Next week Matt finishes Elementary School! So we have several days of activities related to "Graduation". The crazy world we live in...Matt's Graduation from Elementary School is a bigger, more elaborate festivity than any of my college graduations were! I suspect it's even bigger than a High School Graduation at Hackettstown High (but I can't really say, since I never graduated...).

Sticking with the theme...

Marcus graduated from pre-school this week! Can you believe our "baby" is now a Kindergartner! Gheesh... Well, our point-and-click camera simply couldn't handle the lighting + distance to get a decent photo. Tater Tot (who is easily recognizable to me in this photo, but I see him every day), is in the middle of this photo. His profile is right above the bald head in the center of the photo.

Congratuations, Tater! (BTW - he's very proud and would gladly field congratulatory phone call from any relative).

Matt's final violin concert...

School is finally winding down here. This week began the end-of-year festivities in earnest and school winds up next week. Matt had his final violin concert of Elementary School in Thursday. There were only eight "Advanced Strings" players, but Matt wound up sitting in the second row behind a HUMONGOUS music stand. We took about a dozen pictures during the performance...none of them turned out. We finally sent Madison on a mission to snap a photo from the front between songs. Believe it or not...this is the best one we had. Doh!

Yes, that's Matt just to the right of the "Big Legs". You can see his lap and his shirt...no face, no hands, and no violin. There goes Madison's Pulitzer for Photo Journalism!

Tiny's Big Day...

Madison visited the Reagan Library today and was surprised by Mrs. Reagan, Michael Reagan, and one of his daughters (she wasn't sure which one..she said, "you know, the one with the cute dog named "Duke"?).

A fun summer read...and more on the flu and plague...

I've blogged before about the Flu Epidimic of 1917. Well, I recently finished one of the more enjoyable books I remember. Ken Follet's World Without End. It's long (1100+pages), but is was super fun. I started it before flying to Europe a few weeks ago. I read it on the plane while Michelle slept there and back, and then finished it on the plane to OKC. I highly recommend it (Bort-you'll love it!).

One of the interesting plot devices in the book is the plague. It comes on like a whirlwind killing 1/2 the population of Europe in the 13th Century. Interestingly, they have no theory of germs, or contagion and simply can't understand what it is. Their existing world-view assumes it must be the judgment of God on their sin. It's fascinating to imagine the sense-making that goes on around this time.

I was thinking of this last week when I saw the preview for this new movie. Sounds like the same premise put to modern sensibilities. I can't wait to see it!

Ode to the 534, or The Joys of Public Transit

A recent column by Robert Reich about Public Transit is spot on about the economics of public transit. Having lived in nearly every type of urban/suburban combination in the US (major East coast cities, & nearby suburbs, small isolated college towns in the mid-west & southwest, and LA), and traveled to many countries in Europe and South America, I've got some perspective on the role of public transit.

My perspective is this...

It's nice.

I like it.

We should have more of it.

This summer, one of my goals was to explore the public transit in LA. Since then, I've taken the LA bus system a few times...to meetings in West LA and a conference at USC. I even took it to the Valley one day for shopping. While it is certainly a bit inconvenient having to accomodate my life to a public schedule, it's very nice. A few observations...

• For $3 I can take the bus from the entrance of Pepperdine to a meeting 22 miles away by the airport ($5 round-trip). If I drive that same trip, the IRS estimates the cost at $22 ($.51/mile).
• For a 9am meeting in West LA/Culver City, I need to leave at 8:15 if I'm driving. If I take the bus, I have to leave at 7. That is a bit earlier. But, the entire time on the bus is productive. I can read, make phone calls, even grade papers. Not bad.
• The bus system is horribly complex. The website makes it simple to figure out a single trip, but if you miss a bus, you're screwed. Last week I missed a bus at USC by 5 minutes. The next bus was about 15 minutes later...no big deal. But, 15-minutes was enough to make me miss the bus back to Malibu--which only comes once an hour. So, those five minutes cost me an hour. If the system had been a bit easier to understand, I would have been sure to catch that first bus.
• I prefer rail to bus transit. But both beat driving myself.
  

The messy mix of politics and religion

Last night, my good buddy JA (who like me, is also a bachelor this week), came over and we watched "Jesus Camp" from Netflix. Eeewwww... it was disturbing. For those who haven't seen it, I recommend it - partially. The show did a good job of demonstrating life inside a relatively insular, fundamentalist movement in the mid-west. They showed a children's minister in the suburbs of MO who is (IMHO) indoctrinating children to a very harmful, and unhealthy way of thinking (if it can appropriately be called thinking) about life, the universe, and a toxic brew of literal biblicism and nationalism. I should say, the show creeped me out. And, even though I grew up in a fundamentalist home and tradition, this show presented a world-view completely foreign to me. The biggest weakness of "Jesus Camp" was that it made no differentiation between "evangelicals" and the type of fundamentalist/pentacostals portrayed. I suppose it is my own naivete to expect "outsiders" to understand our own internal differences. But the indoctrination going on in this documentary is just as disturbing to me as a conservative evangelical involved in Children's Ministry as it would be to any secular humanist.

In a related, but very different, vein...Pepperdine's Douglas Kmiec, who you have very likely seen on CNN, or some other evening news show, was recently denied communion in the Catholic Church. The reason? Kmiec, who has been a long-time GOP activist, a ranking member of the Reagan Justice Dept., and the former Dean of the Law School at the Catholic University had the audacity, as a private citizen, to support Barack Obama for President.

Amazingly, in this one instance at least, the Catholic Church has more in common with the fundamentalist pentacostalism of "Jesus Camp" than my admittedly fundamentalist, yet largely apolitical Church of Christ heritage.

History & Politics...

I found a very interesting new podcast this week. It's by historian Bruce Carlson and it looks at current political events through the eyes of history. It's fascinating. It reminds of a favorite saying of Stewart Davenport. Stewart is fond of saying,

if you want to understand how the world works, study economics. But if you want to understand why it works the way it does, study history.

Go ahead...add it to your iTunes/Zune/Homepage. It's worth a listen.

All I want for Christmas...

Tiny lost her other front tooth today!

Follow-up to Joshua Tree...

One final comment on the joys of Joshua Tree. We had SO much fun, that we all hated for it to end. But no one felt as strongly as Tater Tot.

He literally cried for thirty minutes after we left the campsite. Here was the conversation...

TT: Daaaaadddd! Do we HAVE to leave?

MW: Yes, Tater.

TT: Whhhyyyyy?

MW: Because Matt has to go to school and I have to go to work tomorrow.

TT: But I want to stay!

MW: But, Tater...wouldn't you miss your friends?

TT: No.

MW: Wouldn't you miss your friend, Nate?

TT: No.

MW: Wouldn't you miss your friend Anne Towles?

TT: No.

MW: Wouldn't you miss Meghan?

TT: No.

(this line of reasoning went through his entire list of friends with the same result. Then I got desperate...)

MW: Wouldn't you miss Madison?

TT: No.

MW: Wouldn't you miss Mom?

TT: No.

MW: OK, Tater. We'll come back in a few weeks with Mom and Madison and camp here again.

TT: But that won't be any fun!

MW: Why not, Tater?

TT: Because Madison will just cry about the bugs and Mom will just say "Be careful! Be careful!"

Matt and I laughed pretty hard. When I showed Michelle the pictures, she said she had no interest in going because she would not be able to have any fun she'd be TOO worried. :-)

Joshua Tree...

Matt, Marcus and I had a BLAST at the "climbthehilltop.com" men's retreat to Joshua Tree. This will definitely become one of our annual traditions. Too much fun! Here are some pics.